The week my food truck got hit by a $2,700 health code violation in Detroit

I run a small BBQ truck down near Eastern Market, and last Tuesday was supposed to be our biggest lunch rush of the summer. Instead, health inspector showed up at 11 AM and found our hand wash sink wasn't hot enough, like 10 degrees below code. They shut us down for two full days while we got a plumber to fix the water heater, and I lost about $1,800 in sales during that time. Worst part was I knew the sink was acting finicky for weeks but kept putting off the repair because I was too busy with catering orders. Monday was a total nightmare of refunding orders and calling off five events we had booked, but by Thursday we were back rolling and actually had our best Friday ever. Anyone else get blindsided by a little thing that turned into a huge problem with the city health department?

2 comments

2 Comments

robin59110d agoProlific Poster

Man that sucks. Same thing happened to my buddy's taco truck in Philly last spring.

thomas_torres10d ago

Yeah that "same thing happened to my buddy's taco truck" line hit close to home. It really does suck when you put all that work into something and then someone just messes with it. I hope your buddy was able to bounce back and get back on his feet, those food truck guys work so hard. It's just so frustrating how some people got no respect for other people's stuff. Hope things turned out okay for him in the end.